A century on Main Street: The Egyptian Theatre celebrates 100 years
PARK CITY, Utah — For a century, the Egyptian Theatre has been a constant on Park City Main Street, watching the community surrounding it change from a historic mining town into an international mountain destination. This weekend, the theater is inviting the community to celebrate the people who have been part of its 100-year story.
The Egyptian Theatre will kick off its centennial celebration with a Park City Reunion Picnic from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, at the City Park Bandstand.
The free gathering is open to anyone who has lived or worked in Park City. Attendees are encouraged to bring picnics, coolers, blankets, and chairs, along with their “local flair,” and spend the evening reconnecting with friends and neighbors and remembering Park City’s past.
Organizers hope the reunion can become an annual tradition.
“We served as the original home of the Sundance Film Festival and screened some of their biggest premieres,” said Maclane Vipond, marketing manager for the Egyptian Theatre. “From Oscar-winning performances to Tony-winning theatre shows, our theatre has been a place for our community to gather for 100 years and will continue to do so for the next 100 years.”
From the Park City Opera House to the Egyptian
The theater’s history stretches back even further than its 1926 opening.
The site on Main Street was previously home to the Dewey Theatre, which opened in 1899 after a fire destroyed Park City’s Opera House the previous year. The Dewey became an important entertainment venue for the mining community before its roof collapsed under a record snow load in 1916.
Construction on a new theater began on the site in 1922. At the time, the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt had sparked a worldwide fascination with Egyptian-inspired architecture and design.
Park City’s new theater embraced the trend. An Egyptologist was consulted on the design, which incorporated lotus leaves, scarabs, hieroglyphics, and other Egyptian motifs. The theater opened on Christmas Day 1926.
Over the following decades, the building remained a gathering place through some of Park City’s most significant changes.
As a movie theater, the Egyptian was the first in Park City to show “talkies” as sound transformed the movie industry. When Park City’s mining economy declined and the community began its transition toward a ski and tourism economy, the theater changed along with it.
In 1963, the building was renamed the Silver Wheel Theatre. Its marquee and orange exterior took on a more Western aesthetic, reflecting Park City’s mining heritage and its emerging identity as a ski town. Live theater and films continued to be presented there, including the “meller dramas” that were popular during the era.
A Community Effort Saves the Egyptian
By the late 1970s, the theater’s future was again uncertain.
Preserving the building’s distinctive Egyptian architecture became a priority, and a local fundraising effort helped save it.
The theater was refurbished and became home to Park City Performances in 1981. That same year, a small film festival moved to Park City.
The U.S. Film and Video Festival — later renamed the Sundance Film Festival — held its screenings at the Egyptian and Holiday Village Cinemas during its first year in Park City. The Egyptian would go on to become one of Sundance’s most recognizable venues, hosting premieres and breakout films during the festival’s decades in Park City.
The Egyptian faced another major challenge in the 1990s after the building was foreclosed on and fell into disrepair. A group of community members formed the Save Our Stage Foundation, raised money to purchase the property and undertook another major renovation.
That effort helped secure the theater’s future as a performing arts venue. Today, the building is owned by Save Our Stage and leased to Park City Performances at a reduced rate, a relationship that has helped preserve the Egyptian as a Main Street cultural landmark.
While its association with Sundance became an important part of its modern identity, the theater has never been solely a movie house. Today, the Mary G. Steiner Egyptian Theatre hosts concerts, theater, comedy, special events, community functions, and youth programming through YouTheatre.
Celebrating 100 Years
The Sept. 6 reunion picnic is the first of several events planned throughout the Egyptian’s centennial year.
Other planned celebrations include a 45th anniversary event for Park City Performances on Oct. 10, “Showtime on Main Street” history nights Nov. 19-21, and a special 100th anniversary performance on Dec. 25.
The centennial celebration will also spill into Park City’s Miners Day festivities.
On Monday, Sept. 7, the Egyptian is partnering with the Park City Rotary Club for a special Running of the Balls fundraiser. The theater is offering 200 commemorative “100-Year-Old Balls” for $250 each. The balls will be released before the rest of the balls, and the first seven across the finish line will receive complimentary inclusion as Egyptian “Pharaohs.”
For Vipond, the anniversary is ultimately about more than the building itself.
“The Egyptian Theatre has been a keystone to our community for the last 100 years,” Vipond said. “Providing access to the arts for Parkites and all who visit our town.”
